There are agitated whispers in hospital coffee rooms. The ‘ethics’ imposed by the Medical Council is abrupt, disproportionate, and one-sided. The pharma guys do not carry bulging leather bags any more. Just a three-flap folder. Product number one, two, three. ‘Take this pencil if you please, and in your special case, the boss has specifically instructed me to hand you this sharpener. We reserve this for our prized doctors. Just to remind you, sir, all our products are freely available, for a price marked as the MRP’. If this was not enough, he rubs in the same old phrase, ‘Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?’. No, nothing. Just get your st***, ar*** out of my clinic.

No one ever objected to ‘ethics’. It’s one of those subjects that is always incorrect to browse. I don’t remember, but maybe I blogged earlier in its favour. That’s because all my friends told me that it was a necessity to show solidarity. ‘This is the moment’, they said, ‘to wipe off decades-old dust of the phrase they have been using for us-money-minded! Perhaps you are as yet not recognized, but many have seen that bluetooth. You better do it!’ Now they tell me it was a trap! The government never told us that the budget is going to hit a double digit on a six digit take-home. The five digit pharma guy with the smirk gets all the benefits of the elevated tax slab. Your first class to Europe for the summer lecture, will be converted to two economies for him and his wife to Singapore. No funds for Continuing Medical Education (CME). Everything for Continuing Monetary Expansion! If they save a buck, the profession gets cleaner. If you ask them to pitch in for academics in the Alps, it comes under global warming. ‘Ethics’ evaporates, and the snow melts. Let’s freeze these arguments here.

The ‘rapids’ of life are not easy. You thought you were floating on an inflatable life boat. Actually, you are adrift on three or four slabs you are managing to hold together, called EMIs. It is still a conjecture whether swimming all by yourself was less exhausting or trying to hold these disjointed slabs as you were forced to believe. The direction in which a river flows is denoted as ‘downstream’. That is always towards the plains. It widens and gets shallower. The logs may get stuck there. You may just wade out to the shore. Are you sure you needed the logs, or have you just transported them to a warehouse near the bend. Your labours aside, you probably have blessed a timber mafia from your heart’s core, for saving your life. Lucky you. Much luckier him! Sorry to defreeze, but with the existing uncertainties, should someone supposed to save others’ lives be deprived of extra calories by the very agencies which sell their calories by the force of his pen? Patients, relatives, and tweeters, give me a better definition of ‘ethics’!

I concede that grace and detachment are virtues of the truly privileged. The healthiest of lambs are chosen for the altar. Anything slimmer would not be a ‘sacrifice’ by the very definition. Honesty and ethics are to be practised by a class which is emulated, for a larger benefit to the society. If there be a healer of the body, heal thy soul first. Got it. That’s the spirit. ‘Live a life for a higher purpose,’ I told my friends. ‘Higher indeed’ they said, looking at the ceiling. Sure, the private and more remunerative suites were on the upper two floors. That was a ‘higher’ purpose for them. It was natural for them, brilliant as they are. Beyond that, I believe lies the supernatural. But let me assure you, humanly ambitious as a good lot of us may be, no one ever thinks that way.

A discordant note needs to be accommodated here. Prof Ramamurthy, the learned Iyengar, godfather of neurosurgery in India, always started his lectures, even on international platforms by a famous verse in Sanskrit, ‘Vaidyarajya……….’. Aanestly, I don’t remember anything beyond that. I understand that ‘vaidya’ has been apposed with ‘raja’, so perhaps physicians were more prosperous then. I also sincerely hope that none of you may pull out the original verse from ‘google’, for I believe it is not all that honorable, and you may have realized that I have a rather convenient memory.

Nothing wrong with the MCI. Gifts worth Rs 5000 are exempted. There is graded punishment, and beyond Rs 25,000, you lose your licence. Since this is not personal ethics for ethics sake, I presume that the pharma industry is saving around 20% on its its expenses. One would expect a 15%-20% drop in tariffs being passed on to the patient. Is that happening? Money-minded doctors have no role here. May the patients politely seek their benefits!

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Author

Anoop Kohli is a senior consultant neurologist at the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, New Delhi. His interests go far beyond his chosen profession. For him, it's just one game of life so interesting to study for all its themes and aberrations. He also dabbles in script-writing and recently got a membership of the Bombay Film Writers' Association. In this blog, Masquerader, expect from him anything from H1N1 to Heena.